The Insider System

Chapter 94: The interaction

Once Lake got to the alley and was let inside he saw that a lot of the stuff was actually gone. Lake guessed someone came by and bought all the jewelry they had for some reason. Well not all of it, just a lot, more than half seemed to be an accurate estimation. Lake saw this as a good thing for him because he knew they would have enough gold to pay him.

Seeing the same guy he had every time he had come here, Lake walked up and took the two cheapest items he had stolen from the safe and put them on the counter. It didn't take long for the guy behind the counter to say. "It's good stuff but I'm not able to accurately estimate its value, so you'll need to take it to someone else I know. The only problem is you'll need to be in the guild to meet them. If you don't want to join I'll have to lowball the price to make sure I don't give you too much."

"What's the offer?" Lake was hoping for something around 1400 for these two rings, so he would make a decision after he heard how little he was actually about to get. "I can only give you 800 to be safe." Lake guessed this guy was bad when it came to appraising magic items, so he couldn't tell what the effects of the rings were.

He could also tell this wasn't just a ploy to get him to join their guild because the guy hadn't lied about not being able to accurately estimate its value, so he asked. "What is the process to join?" Lake could tell the guy was happy he was interested even if he hadn't lied to make it happen.

"It's simple, you just have to finish one of these." The guy pulled a stack of papers out after he said this, and let Lake see them. "Just choose one no matter what the difficulty is and you also get the reward if you complete it on top of becoming a member." The guy had handed him a stack of jobs that needed to be completed.

Flipping through them real quick to see if the one Lucas had set up was on one of the sheets Lake didn't see it. He also didn't see anything that hard, it was just a lot of taking something from their neighbor or ex because they wanted it. Just picking one where he needed to break into someone's house, Lake handed it to the guy.

"I'll do this one, is there a time limit?" The guy shook his head and said. "No you just have to be the first to complete the mission because others can take it as well and if you take too long you'll end up failing your test." Lake had actually been planning to go sleep in his cart after this but he guessed he could go do this real quick.

It would only take a couple of minutes once he got to the house and all he needed to steal was a family heirloom because the person who had commissioned the job thought his brother would sell it, and that his parents should have left it to him instead.

...

Standing outside the guys shack that he would probably call a house Lake set Detector to look for the shield he was there to steal then give back. Since this guy's house was so small it ended up being about 5 feet from where Lake was standing outside the house.

Lake used Mana Vision to see if anyone was inside and when he saw there were a couple inside he knew this would take longer than he hoped. When Lake said a couple he meant literally, from the way their cores were moving he could tell what was going on inside.

This wasn't the first time he had seen this while using Mana vision because he was looking into people's houses but this was the first time it had anything to do with them. Lake just hoped the woman didn't live here and would leave after they were done and Lake hoped this guy did the classic move of falling asleep soon after. It was late so there was a good chance.

Lake was actually surprised they were still at it with it being a few hours after most people had already gotten done with their nightly routine, maybe they both had high Endurance or something.

Almost forty minutes later Lake saw the movement finally slow down and he guessed they were done because right after that Lake saw one of them get off the bed and a few seconds later he guessed they used to get dressed later they headed for the door. Lake was already hidden from their view, so he didn't need to hide or anything, so once they had left he waited for whoever was still inside to fall asleep.

Once he thought that it had happened Lake smashed a hole in the thin wooden wall and grabbed the shield. Turning to run it didn't even take a second for Lake to tell there was something wrong. Lake could tell this shield wasn't as crummy as it looked and when he felt it tug itself out of his grasp and back to the surprisingly awake person watching him from the bed, Lake knew he had just been caught for the first time.

"My brother sent you huh? Well after I kick your ass to death you can tell him our parents gave me the shield because I can use it, and he can't."

Lake couldn't tell if this guy was about to kill him, or not because the threat hadn't made sense, but he could tell they were about to fight. Lake could run of course, but he would fail the mission, and to get the shield now he would have to knock the guy out, so he couldn't use the shield any more while he took it to the alley.

Also the brother had asked that he wasn't killed, so if Lake just offed the guy, he would also fail. Lake waited for the guy to make the first move because he was going to take a passive approach towards this fight at first, so the guy would overuse his skills and hopefully the shield would stop working, but when he expected the first attack to be used the guy just put a shirt on.

Lake couldn't help but laugh because this was the first time he had ever seen someone do that before a fight. He also admired this guy's guts to do something like that in front of someone who was there to do crime on you, but he also saw it as a chance to end this early using his full speed including Burst Lake hent for the guys throat.

He wasn't going to slice it or anything, just give it a smack that a potion could heal, but right when his hand was about to rumble his apple, Lake's hand hit something much harder than a gizzard. With a crunching noise Lake felt his hand become blocked by the guy's shield.

Lake hadn't expected any form of defense from a guy still in the process of getting his shirt over his head, but it seemed this guy was willing to take the time to put it on during a fight because he knew his shield would protect him while he did. Pulling his hand back, Lake could tell his fingers were fine; he had just hit his hand hard enough to pop his fingers.

He also knew the shield had just blocked an attack from him while he was using Burst so unless he used Fast Hands or Crunch that was his max attack power. Lake was in a bad position in this fight because he couldn't kill the guy, or destroy his shield if he wanted to pass his mission, so he couldn't rely on strength to win so that just left Intelligence and Agility.

Seeing the shield start to move out of the way, Lake was about to try and make a non lethal attack when he realized the shield was spinning towards his face. He had to turn his head as he dodged because of the speed the shield was moving and when he turned it back to get his eyes back on the guy all he could see of him was his fist a centimeter away from his face.

Lake didn't have time to dodge, but he still tried while bracing his nose. Feeling a crunch from his nose Lake was knocked back a few steps and when he was about to get his movement under control he felt something like a searing pain in his shoulder.

Opening his eyes that were tearing up like crazy from the attack to his nose, Lake saw the shield now back in front of the guy had blood on it. Looking at his shoulder Lake saw a gash that had gone straight through his armor and cut down into the center of his shoulder. He could tell by looking at it that his collar bone had been cut so it was a serious wound.

This was the first time Lake had ever been injured during a fight so he was kind of in shock when he was the mess that was his shoulder. "You're one of those Bitches from the Thieves guild aren't you. I can tell you aren't used to being hit with how easy it was to break your nose. Is that enough for you to run and tell my brother not to try this again, or do I need to take your hands off."

Lake could tell this guy also had no plans to kill in this fight, but Lake was having a hard time with the amount of pain he was in so he really couldn't get himself to do anything but watch the blood gush from his wound. Snapping out of it he said. "I'll go and tell your brother." Lake started to walk away and tried to use his arm to get the first aid stuff out of his bag when he heard.

"Tell him to come visit as well. I haven't seen him since moms funeral." Lake doubted he would do that because he had no intentions of ever seeing this guy's brother; he just wanted to stop himself from bleeding before he came back for round two.